As more high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) wells are drilled, the use of ceramic fracturing
proppants has become commonplace. Uncoated ceramics encounter serious performance
issues when exposed to these harsh well conditions. These deficiencies include lower fracture
flow capacity due to proppant fines generation and migration, abrasive proppant flowback
(causing possible equipment damage and well shut-in), and a reduction in proppant pack
strength from cyclic stress changes that occur during the life of the well.

Conventional resin coated ceramics were designed to address these issues; however, they fail to
perform under elevated pressure, temperature, and extended pump times.

Proppant Flowback Control Proppant flowback is a serious issue that needs to be avoided when producing wells. The
proppants that flow back at a high rate of speed in a “sand blasting” effect can seriously
damage equipment. This leads to costly downtime and equipment replacement. XRT
Ceramax’s superior resin technology eliminates proppant flowback, allowing you to flow the well
back more aggressively than the other curable proppants in the industry. The flexibility of the
resin system allows the pack to maintain its integrity even after multiple well shut-ins, which put
cyclic stress on the proppant pack.

Cyclic Stress Wells undergo varying degrees of stress that change in a repetitive fashion during their lifetimes.
These cyclic stress factors have the most significant impact on fracture flow capacity. As the
number of cycles increase, the proppant permeability and fracture width decrease over time.

Cyclic stress can break a conventional pack, compromising the integrity of the structure and
reducing conductivity. XRT Ceramax remains flexible in HPHT environments and the proppant
pack has the ability to re-heal, eliminating flowback and fines generation.

Temperature Stability Whether the proppant is at downhole conditions or sitting in storage, temperature stability is an
important factor. The resin coating of typical proppants begins to cure at elevated
temperatures. A decrease in the amount of curability equals a decrease in bond strength. XRT
Ceramax was designed to retain its curability at elevated temperatures and will not bond unless
subjected to both high temperature and closure stress. These proppants retain greater than
95% of their initial bond strength after sitting in storage conditions of 140°F (60°C) for 28 days.

Case History: Operator Eliminates Flowback A South Texas operator experienced severe proppant flowback and disappointing production
results after pumping both conventional resin coated proppants and “on-the-fly” liquid resin
systems. These problems made it necessary for the operator to keep flowback equipment onsite
to reduce damage to surface production equipment. It also led to costly wellbore cleanouts with
coiled tubing. Switching to XRT ceramics eliminated proppant flowback and provided increased
production results from these HPHT wells.

Case History: Faster Load Recover/Quicker Sales A north Louisiana fracturing company decided to use XRT Ceramax for their well. After the
stimulation job, the personnel responsible for flowback noticed that they could flow the well
much faster without having any proppant flowback issues. This ultimately led to a 10%
reduction in load recovery time, leading to quicker online gas sales. Since then, the operator has
requested XRT Ceramax E on all similar frac treatments in this field and is now getting improved frac
cleanup and quicker ROI from the frac treatments.
Hexion designed its newly revised and patented XRT Ceramax product line to perform under the
harshest high-stress, high-temperature well conditions. Since its introduction in 2003, XRT
Ceramax has been successfully utilized in thousands of wells worldwide.